Zalmoxis. Zamolxe

Parallel Texts

Translated into English by Doris Plantus

Contemporary Literature Press is publishing in both English and Romanian Zamolxe / Zalmoxis, written by the Romanian poet Lucian Blaga in 1921. It is a dramatic poem, and its subtitle is "A Pagan Mystery".
There are several reasons why we have chosen to publish Blaga's poem in English.
First of all, it was translated by a very gifted Romanian philologist, born in America. Doris Plantus is a writer herself, and not long ago we published her cosmogonic story The Hermit.
On the other hand, Blaga's poem was published just one year before James Joyce's Ulysses, and T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land.
Even though Modernism was in full swing, Blaga chose to write a poem about Dacian monotheism and the cult of Zalmoxis.
Last but not least, besides being a writer, Lucian Blaga was also a philosopher, academic, diplomat and member of the Romanian Academyuntil he refused to support communism, and was demoted to the position of a simple librarian.
While speaking about the remote times of the Getae, of Dacians, and of Zalmoxisthe god that was twice denied by his people, this book is also a prefiguration of its author's fate.

Lidia Vianu

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